Our little harbour
at Woudrichem was well protected, as indeed is the whole town, and apparently
it has regularly been besieged over the centuries
We headed
out onto the mighty Waal river – renamed from the Rhine by the Dutch once in
Holland – and rocked and rolled our way downstream in company with enormous
barges, tankers etc. There was a stiff breeze kicking up short waves, all
complicated by the washes from the various barges. Quite uncomfortable on
Saskia at times. Indeed, it was a wild ride for a while, since we are
much the slowest on the river, and are regularly overtaken, as well as meeting
others. On one occasion a blue-boarding upstreamer was passing on our starboard
(right) side, while a massive gas tanker was overtaking us on the port (left) side.
It felt like being the filling in a baguette sandwich. Finally the river
divided, and we headed onto the calmer arm, though still plenty of boat-related
industry lining the banks: boat building and repairing is the thing around
here:
At the
same time, it was nice to see people taking a keen interest in their gardens on the
river bank:
We passed
an enormous Noah’s ark on our approach to Dordrecht, which sits on an island at
the confluence of three enormous rivers. Not sure why it should be here, but it floats and apparently has some sort of exhibition inside.
We had to
wait for half an hour or so for the lift bridge to go up to let us into the marina,
where the harbour master assigned us a comfortable berth – in fact just beyond a second lift bridge
that has to go up for sailing yachts such as these:
We did a
bit of sightseeing, and a fairly substantial shop at a supermarket, and once
again relaxed with a refreshing beer:
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